Cartalax

Cartalax is a synthetic tripeptide — alanyl-glutamyl-aspartic acid, abbreviated AED — from the family of short regulatory peptides catalogued in Khavinson research on tissue-specific peptide fragments. Its interest is structural rather than receptor-based: at three residues it is small enough to be studied as a direct nucleic-acid-interacting ligand rather than as a conventional receptor agonist, and the acidic side chains of glutamate and aspartate are what drive that binding hypothesis.

Made by solid-phase synthesis and shipped as a 10 mg lyophilized powder in a sealed glass vial. Supplied for laboratory research use only.

The short-peptide literature is concentrated in a small number of groups, and independent replication is limited. Areas of study include:

• Peptide-DNA and chromatin interaction models — the proposed mechanism by which a tripeptide could influence transcription without a receptor.
• Gene-expression readouts in chondrocyte and connective-tissue cell culture.
• Extracellular matrix protein assays in vitro, where the peptide is applied as a culture condition.
• Structure-activity comparison across the AED, KED and AEDG family, where single-residue changes are the variable.
• Stability of tripeptides in culture medium, since very short sequences are cleaved quickly.

We make no claim about outcomes in any organism, and note the evidence base here is narrower than for better-studied peptides.